The reconstituted group of ministers (GoM) on Bhopal is set to meet on Friday. Chaired by Union home minister P Chidambaram, the nine-member GoM has the challenging task of correcting the perception that for the past 25 years, the government neglected victims of the biggest industrial disaster in history.
Briefing reporters after a cabinet meeting, information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni expressed confidence that all Bhopal-related issues would be addressed on priority.
“GoM will look at all issues, more specifically reaching out to people who unfortunately have received inadequate compensation,” she said.
After a Bhopal court handed down punishment of only two years to seven ex-officials of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) on June 7 and let off Warren Anderson, the US-based chief of UCIL parent company Union Carbide Corporation, there has been a collective sense of outrage. Voices that Anderson was let off as “part of a conspiracy” have been growing.
It is to silence these voices that prime minister Manmohan Singh directed GoM on June 14 to submit its report within 10 days.
Apart from Chidambaram, the group includes Ghulam Nabi Azad, M Veerappa Moily, S Jaipal Reddy, Kamal Nath, Kumari Selja, MK Alagiri, Prithviraj Chavan and Jairam Ramesh.
Some of the issues flagged for GoM’s attention are revisiting the compensation and rehabilitation package, evaluating the possibility of filing a curative petition before the Supreme Court, setting up a memorial for the victims in Bhopal, ensuring the plant site is cleaned up of all toxic waste, pursuing the extradition of Anderson and suggesting a comprehensive legal framework to tackle such disasters in future. The issue of letting off Anderson in December 1984 is also expected to figure in the two-hour meeting.
Babulal Gaur, the Madhya Pradesh minister in-charge of rehabilitation, is a permanent invitee to the meeting. He is expected to raise the state’s concern with regard to the handling of local issues related to rehabilitation. Gaur, a former BJP chief minister, has been very critical of the Centre’s attitude to the Bhopal problem and has not spared even the NDA government.
